beer column

here are my notes from tuesday's on the coast with stephen quinn:From charity brews to charitable donations,
and from hiring differently abled employees to mentoring, the craft beer
community really gives back to the greater community.

For example, Phillips Brewing in Victoria has for the
past 4 years brewed a “Benefit Brew” – a beer whose entire profits
(approximately $10,000) are donated to a charity chosen by the public.And it’s not too late to vote for this year’s
recipient.You have until November 15th
to cast your vote, and you can vote every day between now and the 15th.Regardless of which charity is announced on
November 17th as the winner, all of the nominees come out ahead as
the other nine finalists receive a $500 donation. Visit the website to see the nominees and place your vote.Phillips says: "We make beer, and we want to use our powers of craft beer creation for good! A few years back we decided that an awesome way to do this would be to create a special beer for a charity, name the beer after the cause and donate the proceeds - the charity receives some much-needed support, and we get to brew a fun beer! However we quickly ran into a problem: there are just way too many deserving causes for us to simply choose one. To solve our conundrum we put it out to the community to tell us who they wanted to support adnd the Benefit Brew was born!"Phillips isn’t alone.Last month Steamworks Brewing donated some of
the profits from their Heroica Red Ale to the BC Burn Fund; for the past two years Central City Brewing
in Surrey has brewed an Imperial IPA for
Autism.They hold a fundraising dinner,
sell branded glassware for $5 – all of which goes to charity and research, and
donate $2 from each imperial ipa sold as well; Cannery Brewing in Naramata brews a Wildfire IPA (a black IPA or Cascadian dark ale) every year with partial proceeds going to the Canadian Fallen Firefighters Foundation...

VCBW – Vancouver Craft Beer Week brews a
collaboration charity brew each year, with $1 from every 650 ml bottle sold
going to the charity chosen that year.2014’s $5,000 donation went to the Music Heals charity.2011’s $1,294 went to Japanese Tsunami
Relief, 2012’s donation of $3,200 went to the Farmland Defence League of BC and
2013’s donation of $3,500 went to Mark Brand’s A Better Life Foundation. As you can see, the donation amount just keeps on going up for VCBW!

Other than charity brews there were also 2014’s
charity calendar spearheaded by Moon Under Water brewpub in Victoria – The $20
Beautiful Brewers of BC calendar featured PG-13 nude shots of various BC
brewers for each month, with proceeds being donated to the BC Cancer Foundation
to support provincial cancer research; Driftwood Brewing entered the Ride to Conquer Cancer this year and held
fundraisers for their team’s required donation, such as a long-table 5-course
dinner at Hop & Vine in Burnaby
back in April; and there are always fundraisers for people in the brewing community, such
as a head brewer who was diagnosed with leukemia in 2013.Beer-pairing dinners, silent auctions and
raffles were held with donations from breweries and beer lovers alike all
raising funds to help the brewer and his family.

Powell Street Brewing is currently collecting items for the Vancouver Food Bank. For every item you donate, they'll pour you 4oz of their delicious beer (max two per person per day). Doing good never tasted so good!

Breweries are also very generous in
donating beer to other fundraisers.I
have first-hand experience with this as any fund-raiser I have been involved
with has featured beers generously donated by local breweries.In my experience, Storm and Dead Frog have
been particularly forthcoming with donated beer.Thanks guys!Breweries sponsor local sports teams, the tasting rooms partner with food trucks and other local businesses to provide food to their hungry patrons… and of course, as we mention on On the Coast from time to time, the breweries collaborate with each other and help each other out of ingredient shortages, as well as supporting the local homebrew club via contests and hosting brews.

And then there’s the CBC FoodBank Day
fundraiser.Last year I began by asking 6
breweries to donate and all of them came through with so many beer and beer swag
donations that I had three really awesome gift baskets filled in no time, and
had to stop asking for donations before I got deluged!This year I am asking different breweries to
donate and expect that they will provide me with just as many wonderful items
for gift baskets.

Last, but certainly not least, Parallel 49 employs several differently abled staff.P49's program was spot-lighted in October’s CommunityLiving month as a success story of local businesses who hire people with developmental
disabilities.

Beer picks:

Parallel 49 – Toques of Hazzard is back!
This Imperial White IPA is 9.2% but doesn’t taste like it, so go easy with it!
– bottles on tap around town and in the tasting room

Bomber Brewing – Absolute Horizon CDA –
6.5% - bottles and on tap around town and in the tasting room

i didn't always love beer - there was a time in the distant past where i just didn't have a taste for it. fortunately my taste buds changed just around the time folks started brewing really tasty beer. my love affair with beer began. slowly at first, eventually blowing itself up into my current obsession with all things beer. i really like drinking beer. i also enjoy reading about beer, talking about beer, thinking about beer and watching people brew beer.